In certain industries, precision grasping and/or manipulation of a workpiece is crucial. For example, wet-lab automation may require the ability to manipulate microplates (e.g., microtiter plates) with millimeter accuracy, which is traditionally performed with robot arms that are either bolted to the ground or placed on stiff linear rails. Other industries also rely on precision grasping and/or manipulation by automated and/or robotic mechanisms.
However, robotic manipulation is a difficult problem. It may require locating, tracking, and gripping an object in space. In some examples, robotic arms are used. While robotic arms have evolved, they still suffer from a number of shortcomings. For example, robotic arms are often costly, may occupy valuable facility real estate, and, because they may be limited to either being bolted to the floor or to riding on rails, a single facility may often require that multiple robotic arms be installed next to each other in order to service a continuous production line.
UAVs may be excellent candidates to replace traditional fixed robotic arms in warehouses, factories, and laboratories. For example, the UAVs may provide automation and/or transportation of workpieces within a given facility. Further, a UAV with perception and/or comparable transportation capability may be an order of magnitude cheaper than a high-precision robotic arm that may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Indeed, commercial low-cost UAV development is an active and growing industry. The current generation of low-cost commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) UAVs (i.e., consumer UAVs) is already capable of performing relatively safe indoor operation.
However, aerial robotic manipulation involves even more challenges than ground based robotic manipulation. With no fixed reference to operate a gripper from, an already tricky maneuver may be further complicated. Additionally, existing consumer UAVs suffer from aerodynamic instability and/or inaccuracy, which may make such UAVs incapable of precision grasping and manipulation. Indeed, modern consumer UAVs hover with a precision of approximately tens of centimeters, which can also be strongly affected by proximity to walls and tables, arm motion, and mechanical interaction between the arm and the environment.